Bill Wyman, 61, All-America center for Darrell Royal’s SWC champions

Bill Wyman, the former All-America center at the University of Texas who died last week at age 61, was more inclined in his later years to talk about hunting and fishing trips and family reunions than his days as the anchor of Darrell Royal’s final Southwest Conference championship teams.

The camera, however, doesn’t lie. And upon further review, it shows that Bill Wyman was and remains one of the standout names in the history of Texas football, said his younger brother, Jim, who followed his brother’s footsteps at Spring Branch High School and with the Royal-era Longhorns.

“He was truly … he was just awesome,” Jim Wyman said. “I’ve watched a lot of his old game films lately. It was a different era of football back then – three yards and a cloud of dust – but he was just awesome. He really was.”

Wyman, who lived in Bandera for several years and most recently lived on South Padre Island, died Wednesday, family members said. He had suffered from Parkinson’s disease since about 1995; family members did not speculate regarding whether the disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, could have been related to his playing days.

Wyman was one of 12 children – four boys and eight girls – and one of three boys who went on to play college football. He played for Royal’s final three Cotton Bowl teams in 1971-73, clearing the way for Texas’ record-setting wishbone fullback Roosevelt Leaks in 1972-73, and was twice all-conference and consensus All-America in 1973, when he was a finalist for the Lombardi Trophy.

A member of Southwest Conference and Cotton Bowl all-decade teams for the 1970s, he was drafted by the Jets in 1974 but did not play in the NFL.

Jim Wyman said his brother “was very proud of what happened at Texas, but it wasn’t something that he would have a big conversation with you about unless you brought it up. He loved going to the games but didn’t talk a lot about his career.”

Wyman worked after football in the construction business in South Texas before he became ill in the mid-1990s. Family members said he enjoyed fishing and hunting trips and the Wyman family’s well-populated reunions.

With such a large family, Jim Wyman said, “it was hell growing up, but it makes for a hell of a party now with all the husbands and wives and kids and grandkids.”

Survivors include his wife, Lynda; three children, three brothers, eight sisters and several grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at Forest Park Lawndale Funeral Home, 6900 Lawndale.